I posted just a piece of this the other day because that was all that
appeared in Truthdig and it was too difficult to copy it from The Intercept.
I believe this is the entire piece.
Miriam
Greenwald writes: "The French government has repeatedly prosecuted people
for the political views they expressed, and otherwise exploited terrorism
fears to crush civil liberties generally. It has done so with barely a peep
of protest from most of those throughout the West who waved free speech
flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists."
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: AP)
Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France Spent the Last
Year Crushing Free Speech?
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
11 January 16
Its been almost one year since millions of people led by the worlds most
repressive tyrants marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech.
Since then, the French government which led the way trumpeting the vital
importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings has
repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and
otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. It
has done so with barely a peep of protest from most of those throughout the
West who waved free speech flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
Thats because, as I argued at the time, many of these newfound free speech
crusaders exploiting the Hebdo killings were not authentic, consistent
believers in free speech. Instead, they invoke that principle only in the
easiest and most self-serving instances: namely, defense of the ideas they
support. But when people are punished for expressing ideas they hate, they
are silent or supportive of that suppression: the very opposite of genuine
free speech advocacy.
Days after the Paris march, the French government arrested the comedian
Dieudonné Mbala Mbala for being an apologist for terrorism after
suggesting on Facebook that he sympathized with one of the Paris gunmen.
Two months later, he was convicted, receiving a suspended two-month jail
sentence. In November, on separate charges, he was convicted by a Belgian
court for racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in
Belgium and was given a two-month prison term. There were no
#JeSuisDieudonné hashtags trending, and its almost impossible to find the
loudest post-Hebdo Free Speech crusaders denouncing the French and Belgian
governments for this attack on free expression.
In the weeks after the Free Speech march, dozens of people in France were
arrested for hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for
cheering the men who carried out the attacks. The government ordered
prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism
and glorifying terrorism. There were no marches in defense of their free
speech rights.
In October, Frances highest court upheld the criminal conviction of
activists who advocate boycotts and sanctions against Israel as a means of
ending the occupation. What did these criminals do? They arrived at the
supermarket wearing shirts emblazoned with the words: Long live Palestine,
boycott Israel' and also handed out fliers that said that buying Israeli
products means legitimizing crimes in Gaza.' Because boycotts against
Israel were deemed anti-semitic by the French court, it was a crime to
advocate them. Where were all the post-Hebdo crusaders when these 12
individuals were criminally convicted for expressing their political views
critical of Israel? Nowhere to be found.
More generally, the French government seized emergency powers in the wake
of the Paris attack that it originally said would last 12 days. They were
then extended to three months, and there is now talk, as the deadline
approaches, of extending those powers indefinitely or permanently. Those
powers have been used exactly as one would suspect: to barge into places
without warrants where French Muslims gather, shut mosques and coffee shops,
detain people with no charges, and otherwise abolish basic liberties.
Theyve also now been used beyond the Muslim community, against climate
activists. If that sort of classic, creeping repression does not anger and
upset you, then you may be many things, but a genuine advocate of free
expression in France is not one of them.
Even before the Hebdo murders, prosecutions in Europe against Muslims for
the expression of their political opinions were common, especially when
those opinions were critical of Western policy. Indeed, a week before Hebdo,
I wrote an article detailing that growing threat to free speech in the U.K,
France, and throughout the West. Those types of actions carried out by the
worlds most powerful governments were, and remain, the greatest threat to
free speech in the West. Yet they receive a tiny fraction of the attention
that the Hebdo killings did.
Where were, and where are, all the self-proclaimed free speech advocates
about all of that? It was only when anti-Islam cartoons were at issue, and a
few Muslims engaged in violence, did they suddenly become animated and
passionate about free speech. Thats because legitimizing anti-Islam
rhetoric and demonizing Muslims was their actual cause; free speech was just
the pretext.
In all the many years Ive worked in defense of free speech, Ive never seen
the principle so blatantly exploited for other ends by people who plainly
dont believe in it as was true of the Hebdo killings. It was as transparent
as it was dishonest. Their actual agenda was illustrated by how they
invented a brand new free speech standard specially for that occasion: In
order to defend free speech, one must not merely defend the right to express
an idea, they decreed, but must embrace the idea itself.
This newly minted principle is, in fact, the exact antithesis of genuine
free speech protections. Central to an actual belief in free speech rights
is the view that all ideas those with which one most fervently agrees and
those one finds most loathsome and everything in between are entitled to
be expressed and advocated without punishment. The most important and
courageous free speech defenses have typically come from those who
simultaneously expressed contempt for an idea while defending the rights of
other people to freely express that idea. This is the principle that has
long defined authentic free speech activism: Those ideas being expressed are
vile, but I will work to defend the right of others to express them.
Those who exploited the Hebdo murders sought to abolish this vital
distinction. They insisted that it was not enough to denounce or condemn
those who murdered the Hebdo cartoonists. Instead, they tried to impose a
new obligation: One must celebrate and embrace the ideas of the Hebdo
cartoonists, support the granting of awards to them, cheer for the substance
of their views. Failure to embrace the ideas of Charlie Hebdo (rather than
just their free speech rights) subjected one to accusations by the worlds
slimiest smear artists that one was failing to uphold their rights of free
expression or, worse, that one sympathized with their killers.
This cheap bullying tactic trying to force people not merely to defend
Hebdos free speech rights but to embrace the ideas being expressed has
endured to this day (but only when it comes to speech critical of Muslims).
A full year later, its still common to hear supporters of Western
militarism falsely accuse portions of the left of having sanctioned or
justified the attack on Charlie Hebdo solely on the ground that they refused
to cheer for the content of Hebdos ideas.
This accusation is an absolute, demonstrable lie, an obvious slander. Ive
never heard a single person on the left express anything other than
revulsion at the mass murder of the Hebdo cartoonists, nor have I ever heard
anyone on the left suggest that the murders were deserved or that the
cartoonists had it coming. I certainly did hear, and myself expressed,
opposition to the relentless targeting of a marginalized minority in France
by Hebdo cartoonists (that critique, just by the way, was most eloquently
expressed by a former Hebdo staffer, Olivier Cyran: The obsessive pounding
on Muslims to which [Hebdo] has devoted itself for more than a decade has
had very real effects. It has powerfully contributed to popularizing, among
left-wing opinion, the idea that Islam is a major problem in French
society). But objections to the substance of an idea quite obviously does
not denote or even suggest a failure to uphold the rights of free speech for
those who express that idea: unless youre endorsing the noxious, deceitful,
entirely novel concept that one can only defend the free speech rights of
those with whom one agrees.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: AP)
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/where-were-the-post-hebdo-free-speech-cr
usaders-as-france-spent-the-last-year-crushing-free-speech/https://theinterc
ept.com/2016/01/08/where-were-the-post-hebdo-free-speech-crusaders-as-france
-spent-the-last-year-crushing-free-speech/
Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France Spent the Last
Year Crushing Free Speech?
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
11 January 16
ts been almost one year since millions of people led by the worlds most
repressive tyrants marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech.
Since then, the French government which led the way trumpeting the vital
importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings has
repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and
otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. It
has done so with barely a peep of protest from most of those throughout the
West who waved free speech flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
Thats because, as I argued at the time, many of these newfound free speech
crusaders exploiting the Hebdo killings were not authentic, consistent
believers in free speech. Instead, they invoke that principle only in the
easiest and most self-serving instances: namely, defense of the ideas they
support. But when people are punished for expressing ideas they hate, they
are silent or supportive of that suppression: the very opposite of genuine
free speech advocacy.
Days after the Paris march, the French government arrested the comedian
Dieudonné Mbala Mbala for being an apologist for terrorism after
suggesting on Facebook that he sympathized with one of the Paris gunmen.
Two months later, he was convicted, receiving a suspended two-month jail
sentence. In November, on separate charges, he was convicted by a Belgian
court for racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in
Belgium and was given a two-month prison term. There were no
#JeSuisDieudonné hashtags trending, and its almost impossible to find the
loudest post-Hebdo Free Speech crusaders denouncing the French and Belgian
governments for this attack on free expression.
In the weeks after the Free Speech march, dozens of people in France were
arrested for hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for
cheering the men who carried out the attacks. The government ordered
prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism
and glorifying terrorism. There were no marches in defense of their free
speech rights.
In October, Frances highest court upheld the criminal conviction of
activists who advocate boycotts and sanctions against Israel as a means of
ending the occupation. What did these criminals do? They arrived at the
supermarket wearing shirts emblazoned with the words: Long live Palestine,
boycott Israel' and also handed out fliers that said that buying Israeli
products means legitimizing crimes in Gaza.' Because boycotts against
Israel were deemed anti-semitic by the French court, it was a crime to
advocate them. Where were all the post-Hebdo crusaders when these 12
individuals were criminally convicted for expressing their political views
critical of Israel? Nowhere to be found.
More generally, the French government seized emergency powers in the wake
of the Paris attack that it originally said would last 12 days. They were
then extended to three months, and there is now talk, as the deadline
approaches, of extending those powers indefinitely or permanently. Those
powers have been used exactly as one would suspect: to barge into places
without warrants where French Muslims gather, shut mosques and coffee shops,
detain people with no charges, and otherwise abolish basic liberties.
Theyve also now been used beyond the Muslim community, against climate
activists. If that sort of classic, creeping repression does not anger and
upset you, then you may be many things, but a genuine advocate of free
expression in France is not one of them.
Even before the Hebdo murders, prosecutions in Europe against Muslims for
the expression of their political opinions were common, especially when
those opinions were critical of Western policy. Indeed, a week before Hebdo,
I wrote an article detailing that growing threat to free speech in the U.K,
France, and throughout the West. Those types of actions carried out by the
worlds most powerful governments were, and remain, the greatest threat to
free speech in the West. Yet they receive a tiny fraction of the attention
that the Hebdo killings did.
Where were, and where are, all the self-proclaimed free speech advocates
about all of that? It was only when anti-Islam cartoons were at issue, and a
few Muslims engaged in violence, did they suddenly become animated and
passionate about free speech. Thats because legitimizing anti-Islam
rhetoric and demonizing Muslims was their actual cause; free speech was just
the pretext.
In all the many years Ive worked in defense of free speech, Ive never seen
the principle so blatantly exploited for other ends by people who plainly
dont believe in it as was true of the Hebdo killings. It was as transparent
as it was dishonest. Their actual agenda was illustrated by how they
invented a brand new free speech standard specially for that occasion: In
order to defend free speech, one must not merely defend the right to express
an idea, they decreed, but must embrace the idea itself.
This newly minted principle is, in fact, the exact antithesis of genuine
free speech protections. Central to an actual belief in free speech rights
is the view that all ideas those with which one most fervently agrees and
those one finds most loathsome and everything in between are entitled to
be expressed and advocated without punishment. The most important and
courageous free speech defenses have typically come from those who
simultaneously expressed contempt for an idea while defending the rights of
other people to freely express that idea. This is the principle that has
long defined authentic free speech activism: Those ideas being expressed are
vile, but I will work to defend the right of others to express them.
Those who exploited the Hebdo murders sought to abolish this vital
distinction. They insisted that it was not enough to denounce or condemn
those who murdered the Hebdo cartoonists. Instead, they tried to impose a
new obligation: One must celebrate and embrace the ideas of the Hebdo
cartoonists, support the granting of awards to them, cheer for the substance
of their views. Failure to embrace the ideas of Charlie Hebdo (rather than
just their free speech rights) subjected one to accusations by the worlds
slimiest smear artists that one was failing to uphold their rights of free
expression or, worse, that one sympathized with their killers.
This cheap bullying tactic trying to force people not merely to defend
Hebdos free speech rights but to embrace the ideas being expressed has
endured to this day (but only when it comes to speech critical of Muslims).
A full year later, its still common to hear supporters of Western
militarism falsely accuse portions of the left of having sanctioned or
justified the attack on Charlie Hebdo solely on the ground that they refused
to cheer for the content of Hebdos ideas.
This accusation is an absolute, demonstrable lie, an obvious slander. Ive
never heard a single person on the left express anything other than
revulsion at the mass murder of the Hebdo cartoonists, nor have I ever heard
anyone on the left suggest that the murders were deserved or that the
cartoonists had it coming. I certainly did hear, and myself expressed,
opposition to the relentless targeting of a marginalized minority in France
by Hebdo cartoonists (that critique, just by the way, was most eloquently
expressed by a former Hebdo staffer, Olivier Cyran: The obsessive pounding
on Muslims to which [Hebdo] has devoted itself for more than a decade has
had very real effects. It has powerfully contributed to popularizing, among
left-wing opinion, the idea that Islam is a major problem in French
society). But objections to the substance of an idea quite obviously does
not denote or even suggest a failure to uphold the rights of free speech for
those who express that idea: unless youre endorsing the noxious, deceitful,
entirely novel concept that one can only defend the free speech rights of
those with whom one agrees.
But this all highlights that free speech was not the principle being upheld
here; free speech was just a weapon used by some tribalistic Westerners to
try to force people into cheering for anti-Islam and anti-Muslim cartoons
(not merely the right to publish the cartoons without punishment or
violence, but the cartoons themselves).
And what even more powerfully demonstrates the sham at the heart of this
post-Hebdo spectacle is that before the Paris march, and especially since,
there has been a systematic assault on the free speech rights of huge
numbers of people in France and throughout the West who are either Muslim
and/or critics of the West or Israel, and the newfound Hebdo free speech
crusaders have exhibited almost no opposition, and at times tacit or
explicit support. Thats because free speech was their cynical weapon, not
their actual belief.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
But this all highlights that free speech was not the principle being upheld
here; free speech was just a weapon used by some tribalistic Westerners to
try to force people into cheering for anti-Islam and anti-Muslim cartoons
(not merely the right to publish the cartoons without punishment or
violence, but the cartoons themselves).
And what even more powerfully demonstrates the sham at the heart of this
post-Hebdo spectacle is that before the Paris march, and especially since,
there has been a systematic assault on the free speech rights of huge
numbers of people in France and throughout the West who are either Muslim
and/or critics of the West or Israel, and the newfound Hebdo free speech
crusaders have exhibited almost no opposition, and at times tacit or
explicit support. Thats because free speech was their cynical weapon, not
their actual belief.
